


Black and White

by kanonkita



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Shattered Glass
Genre: Emotional Manipulation, Foursome - M/M/M/M, Here comes moresome, Humanformers, Humanized, Immigration, M/M, Mpreg, Multi, Not Beta Read, Open Relationships, Politics, Threesome - M/M/M, a fic someone asked for written in a way that no one ever did, boy next door, domestic abuse, even when they're humans, formerly underage relationship, gender means nothing in the face of giant robots, i'm not sure, just for fun, lots of random worldbuilding details, melancholy megatron, neighbors to lovers, sort of not, sort of shattered glass, this story is way less about sex than those tags make it sound, vossians have fairy wings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2020-10-28 00:23:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20769428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanonkita/pseuds/kanonkita
Summary: Megatron's mostly kept himself to himself since he left the gladiator arenas three years ago (mostly), but one of his new neighbors seems determined to change that.ON HIATUS





	1. Neighbors

**Author's Note:**

> About a year ago, someone on Tumblr asked me to write a certain shattered glass AU involving a Megatron/Starscream/Skyfire love triangle. I wasn't going to because I had too many ongoing projects already, but the idea wouldn't get out of my head, and now I've finally gotten around to it. Fair warning, though, I still have too many ongoing projects and am pretty much writing this entirely for myself like the selfish child I am, so... basically I'm not editing it at all.
> 
> Um, this is a humanized version of Cybertron wherein everyone is still intersex and I've mashed Earth cultures and places willynilly as I pleased. LIke, Kaon is very suspiciously Seoul-shaped, but your guess is as good as mine about the time period. P: If you have questions about the worldbuilding or the anatomy as you read, feel free to drop them in the comments to remind me to answer them later on in the story. I'm just letting myself go on this one and it's gonna be great. PPP:

_ Thump. Thump. Thump. _

Megatron cracks open an eye to glare in confusion at the ceiling over his bed as the tempo of the noises picks up and a couple of gasps filter down through the ceiling.

In his previous apartment, Megatron grew used to tuning out the late night and (in this case) early morning activities of his neighbors, but the man who lives above him now, Assembler Angler, is at least 80 years old and uses a walker because his back can't support him properly after decades of bending over factory belts. It would have taken a miracle for a back like that to manage what Megatron is hearing above him right now, but he supposes stranger things have happened.

Either way, something is liable to give out soon, whether the man's back, heart, or bed, so Megatron rolls over to wait it out because what is the point of working from home if he can’t choose when he gets up?

But fifteen minutes later, the noises are still going, and Angler's partner is only getting more enthusiastic. Megatron finally tips his hat to the man's youthful resurgence and goes about making himself decent enough to stumble down the hall to his floor’s communal toilets.

The skies over Kaon are starting to turn pink with dawn when he returns to his shoe box of a living room and pulls open the blinds. Through a forest of factory smokestacks, Megatron can see the glint of morning sun on the distant skyscrapers of downtown, their windows the only things in the valley high enough to catch the light starting to stream over the mountaintops. Several stories below, one stream of workers rushes toward the subway station a block away for the morning shift and another meanders wearily back toward their homes, all of them heedless of the brilliant dawn colors blossoming over their heads.

He wrote a poem about that once—how a city with some of the most beautiful dawns in the world is always buried too deeply in its factories to see them when they come. He hadn't published it, though. The censorship board would probably disapprove of the anti-establishment sentiments if he ever tried.

Someone calls while Megatron is making himself breakfast—Tarnish fare rather than Kaonian today because five in the morning is too early for anything fermented in Megatron's opinion. Unless he’s counting cheese. It's also too early for phone calls, and he almost lets it go to voice mail without checking to find out who among the brief list of contacts in his phone would bother calling instead of just texting in the first place.

Skywarp apparently.

The Vossian is lucky to be one of a highly select group of individuals whom Megatron would ever tolerate calling him at 5:30 in the morning.

_ “Wow, you're actually awake, _ ” the young man greets him in slightly accented Tarnish when Megatron picks up.

Megatron doesn't bother asking why he would have been calling if he'd expected otherwise because he knows enough about Skywarp by now to know that he doesn't understand half of his own thought processes.

“What do you need?” he asks instead.

_ “Short ribs or pork belly?” _

“What?” Megatron slides the spatula under his fried eggs and flips them with expert precision. Not a drop of yolk lost.

_ “I'm shopping for tonight,” _ Skywarp explains, and it's then that Megatron recalls that he agreed to a social engagement at the Vossians' apartment this evening.  _ “Short ribs or pork belly? T.C. said ribs, but Soundwave said pork belly, and they're both on sale, so I need you to break the tie for me.” _

“Why so early?”

_ “Early!? I'm, like, an hour later than I meant to be! The factory moms are already swarming this place. I'm  _ literally _ beating one back from the meat case while we speak, and he says he has to get home and feed his kids before they leave for school, so hurry up and make a decision for me here!” _

“Just get both,” Megatron says apathetically. “Then everyone's happy.”

_ “Except my wallet.” _

“Bring the receipt and I'll pay for it.”

Which he realizes may have been Skywarp's aim in the first place. The kid could've just asked; Megatron's never been stingy. There isn't a lot of money in poetry, but Megatron gets more than enough content and ghostwriting business to get buy on. Not as much as Thundercracker makes teaching, but then Megatron's rent is barely a third of what the Vossians must pay for their three-bedroom, two-bath, open concept condo with hardwood floors and stainless steel appliances. There are benefits to living in squalor.

_ “Sweet!” _ Skywarp chirps, and then switches from Tarnish to Kaonese to shout, with what Megatron thinks must be deliberate lewdness, for someone to get their paws off his “meat.”

“Six thirty?” Megatron checks.

_ “What? Oh! Yeah, six-thirty. Our place. See you then!” _

Megatron slips his phone into his back pocket and pulls the skillet off the heat to tip his eggs onto a slice of brown bread. It's not real, Tarnish brown bread—you can't get that in Kaonese bakeries where bread is intended as an attractive treat rather than a hardy meal—but it's Baker Checkstop's best attempt after almost a year of trying to reproduce what Megatron described in his poem “Food for the People.”

It's not brown bread, but it's not bad bread, and the thought makes Megatron feel at home more than the flavor.

* * *

All is silent once again from upstairs when Megatron moves to retrieve his computer from where he dropped it by his bed the previous evening. Well, not quite silent. While he's gathering up his power cord, he hears two voices in animated conversation—one a deep rumble and the other has the same timbre of the cries he was hearing earlier. Neither of them sounds like Angler.

Come to think of it, he doesn't recall having seen Angler around lately. Which isn't unusual (the old man goes into the city proper to visit his grandchildren on a regular basis) but neither are squatters.

Megatron heaves a sigh and lumbers back out of his apartment and down the hall, this time going toward the opposite end from the toilets to the stairs.

The building is only seven floors, having been built when more than that was considered too dangerous because firemen’s ladders didn’t reach any higher, and Megatron lives on the sixth. At 34, he's the youngest resident in the building, and gets most of his exercise these days helping his elderly neighbors carry groceries and parcels up and down those stairs. How people like Angler managed all seven flights (with a walker to boot) before Megatron moved in is anyone's guess. Someone ought to install an elevator (he’s seen it done on other buildings like this), but the landlord threatened to hike his rent by several hundred credits a month after Megatron sent an (unanswered) inquiry to the district municipal office on the matter.

Mechanic Gearbelt is tottering down the hall with a bag of persimmons when Megatron steps off the top landing, and he almost trips back down the stairs in his haste to escape. Which is pointless because of course she sees him anyway.

“Omo! Megatron! You're up so early!” She speeds up her totter, chattering the whole way over. “Did you eat already? Our brother sent us these from the orchard back home—end of last year's harvest. Still good. Catch.”

Megatron just barely catches the airborne fruit against his chest.

“Oo, those reflexes! Our Chainbelt still doesn't believe that the infamous ‘Megatronus’ lives in our building, you know,” the woman chuckles. So far as Megatron's concerned, anyone who can still throw a persimmon harder than a lob ball pitcher at over 70 years old ought to be more infamous than him. “I told him I'd send a picture, but Sparkrod's gone and lost our camera somewhere! Don't worry. He isn't getting dimentia; he's just like that. Probably would've lost our daughter before she was born if he hadn't been carrying her himself, and he was only 18 then! And here we have you almost twice that age with nothing to show for it yet.”

“Haven't had the opportunity,” Megatron shrugs when she breaks expectantly.

“How about I introduce you to our youngest grandson? Chainbelt will have to believe in you if you're her son-in-law. He's a good boy. Just finished his compulsory education.”

Which would make him 19 at the most and definitely too young for Megatron. One of the dangers of living in a building full of mated or widowed couples over the age of 60 is constantly being offered potential mates of his own. If he'd wanted, Megatron could have a harem of at least 20 by now, full of good-looking, well-educated boys and girls who were all far too young for him. He'd need a bigger apartment, of course.

“That's very kind of you, Mechanic, but I'm afraid I'm not sure—”

“Why not?” she cuts him off. “Marry a nice Kaonese boy, get him pregnant, and then you don't have to worry about deportation. They won't deport you if you're supporting a mate and a baby. You know Quality Inspector Flashpoint downstairs? He came from Helex with his brothers back in the 70s, and a year later all three of his brothers were deported, but he had Belljar and Richtus was on the way—or is Gridiron their eldest? Anyway, he didn't get deported.”

“I'm sure I'll be fine. I got citizenship last year, and they don't come after skilled laborers for deportations anyway,” Megatron points out.

“Fair enough,” Gearbelt concedes. “Having a mate is more hassle than it's worth sometimes, I'll grant you that, but at least you always know where your next lay is going to come from.”

She gives him a wink and a nudge, and Megatron is reminded of his original purpose in coming up here.

“Do you know if Angler's son is visiting him?” he asks, because not only does Gearbelt tend to know anything that anyone in the building is up to, but doubly Angler as she's in the neighboring unit. “I heard someone in the apartment, but it didn't sound like Angler.”

The old woman's face lights up in the distinct expression of someone who's found a new person to impart old gossip to.

“Did I forget to tell you?” she whispers, darting a glance back over her shoulder before leaning up toward Megatron. “Angler moved out two weeks ago!”

“What!?”

Maybe he should stop avoiding her if he'd managed to miss something that big from the apartment complex's gossip network, but then he’d rather not  _ become _ a part of the apartment complex’s gossip network, so...

“His son moved him into their spare bedroom; worried about his father slipping on the stairs here.” She shakes her head sadly before lighting up in excitement again. “And this new couple moved in two days ago. Very young. From  _ Iacon _ .”

She raises an eyebrow significantly, which could mean anything from her firm belief that Megatron shares her disapproval of Iaconians to her trying to suggest he solicit a threesome out of the couple since they're closer to his age. He decides it best not to pry into the specifics.

“What'd they move in here for?” he wonders, glancing over at the door to unit 701, which used to be Angler's. “Iaconians usually stay around West Town area.”

Gearbelt shrugs. “They should. Too noisy. Had to go over and tell them to turn their TV down yesterday because Sparkrod couldn't sleep with all that racket—was driving the cats crazy too—but then the one who was home didn’t speak hardly a word of Kaonese! Just yelled at me in Iaconian and slammed the door in my face! Our Sparkrod looked like death when I sent him off to work last night.”

Megatron doesn't recall hearing a TV yesterday, but then he spent most of the morning working in a cafe for a change. Perhaps Gearbelt had talked her new neighbors into silence by the time he got home. He was out the day before that to meet with Soundwave about his latest ghostwriting project, which is probably why he didn't see them moving in. He needs to pay more attention, apparently.

“You’re good with languages. You don’t know Iaconian, do you?” Gearbelt wants to know.

Megatron regretfully informs her that no, he does not. It’s one of those languages that he’s always thought of as useful, but never actually put the effort into learning.

“Well, I'm down to the second floor to give Tangleweb the rest of these.” Gearbelt holds up the bag of persimmons. “There's a whole box on our kitchen table. Must be at least fifty in there. I'll make sure Sparkrod doesn't eat them all, so come get some more later if you like.”

And with that she goes trotting purposefully off down the stairs. Megatron waits until he hears her start a conversation with someone else several floors down before casting a last glance at unit 701 and heading back down to his own apartment.

* * *

Megatron eats the persimmon while he works on his project, a speech for someone running to represent their district on the city council. He does a lot of political speeches. Mostly for the members of the Anti-establishment parties, but sometimes the Functionists as well. It pays the bills, and it’s easier to counter arguments you wrote yourself. Soundwave finds the clients for him so that he doesn’t actually have to interact with them.

He can hear footsteps trotting back and forth above him while he works. There are voices too for a while, and then the front door slams and the TV comes on. It is loud. Megatron briefly considers going upstairs to ask them to turn it down himself, and gets as far as looking up how to ask someone to turn down a television in Iaconian before realizing that going upstairs will probably mean bumping into Gearbelt again.

Sure enough, he hears her shouting at the owner of the higher-pitched voice a few minutes later. Part of him thinks he should go up and intervene, but he decides it isn’t worth ending up in Gearbelt’s bad books to help someone he hasn’t met yet.

He puts on headphones instead.

About an hour later, when he’s already had all the deskwork he can handle for the day, he takes them off to find that it’s now silent above him. Megatron considers taking advantage of the quiet to get a nap in, but he also needs a bath before he goes to Skywarp and Thundercracker’s place tonight. The sauna will work just as well for a nap, and no risk of new neighbors deciding to be noisy again in the middle of it.

He shoves his bath things and a change of clothes into a bag and heads out.

* * *

Megatron has found the middle of the day is the best time to go to the sauna. The only people there at that time are those elders like Angler who’ve finally gotten so old and broken that they can’t work anymore and the couple of mothers in the neighborhood whose mates make enough money that they can stay home with the kids. So not only is it almost empty but Megatron gets to see the babies splashing around in the wash tubs, too. 

Children weren’t exactly common anywhere else he’s lived since moving to Kaon, and Megatron finds their presence reassuring. Irrefutable evidence that he might have a genuine chance at a normal life.

Most of the midday sauna crowd knows him by now, and many of the older ones will even offer to wash his back for him. Megatron doesn’t understand that. They know who he is and, more importantly, who he  _ was _ , but they don’t seem to care.

“Why would they?” Soundwave had shrugged when Megatron mentioned it shorly after moving here three years ago. “You carry their groceries up the stairs for them and help their children find lost toys.”

“But I’ve  _ killed _ people! How does that not bother them?” Megatron had wondered.

“Well, you’ve never killed anyone  _ they  _ know,” Soundwave pointed out, and had probably gone off to take a work call or something at that point because Megatron can’t remember any more of that conversation.

Today, when Megatron steps into the sauna, there’s an unfamiliar face in the front lobby.

Not that this in itself is unusual—they’re a decent-sized neighborhood and there’s usually one or two new faces mixed in with the regular crowd—but this one Megatron can’t help doing a double take on.

For one thing, he’s Vossian, and his darker complexion stands out amongst all the Kaonese. There are a decent number of Vossians in Kaon, but they tend to live together in close-knit communities of their own. The only ones Megatron knows who don’t are Thundercracker and Skywarp, who say they’ve never fit in well with their countrymen. Megatron certainly hasn’t seen any in his own neighborhood before.

For another, he’s gorgeous. Not just normal good-looking, but he straight up looks like he stepped off the cover of one of the fashion magazines that Vos is so famous for. His hair and makeup look professionally done, and his clothes are probably the most expensive this neighborhood has ever seen. Megatron isn’t the only one staring. 

The man behind the reception desk keeps glancing up over his newspaper like he thinks the foreigner is a phantom who might disappear at any moment. For his part, the Vossian is frowning up at the pricing schedule with the unmistakable look of a man who has no idea how to read the language in front of him.

Megatron pretends that he too needs a moment to review the options as he debates whether or not to approach the younger man, who is, he now realizes, actually  _ very _ young under all that makeup. While Megatron knows some basic Vossian, it’s not enough that there’s any real reason that it should be  _ him _ specifically who helps the newcomer as opposed to one of the staff. If he goes to talk to this stranger, then he’s liable to end up looking like just another one of those douchebags whom young, attractive people are “helped” by everywhere they go.

But he looks like he genuinely does need an assist.

And it’s not like Megatron’s one of those guys who’s helping out just because this boy is crazy cute or something. He’d help out anyone who was lost. Just ask anyone in the neighborhood.

He takes a confident step forward and drags his meager command of Vossian to the forefront of his memory.

“Excuse me, sir, do you need some help with the prices?” he asks. 

Or… Well, he’s at least 85% sure that’s what he’s said, but the stranger jolts like Megatron jabbed him in the side and whips around. He looks Megatron up and down in obvious panic before practically running for the door without a backward glance.

“What’d you say to him?” the man at the desk wants to know when the Vossian has slammed the door shut behind himself.

Megatron blinks at it a moment before responding: “I’m not really sure.”


	2. Lovers

Megatron rides his motorcycle to Skywarp and Thundercracker’s place that evening rather than the train so that he’ll have an excuse not to get drunk. These days, visiting the Vossians at all is risky, and he doesn’t need any more encouragement to make decisions he’ll regret in the morning than the both of them provide simply by existing.

When Skywarp opens the door for him. the smell of meat and soju already waft off of and around him, and Megatron can hear the grill going somewhere inside. As usual, he’s dressed all in pink: a tight t-shirt just short enough that his navel peeks out above the waistband of a skirt reminiscent of a cheerleader. His wings—lovely, purple-veined gossamer things that they are—are lifted enthusiastically, but fall slightly when he spots the helmet tucked beneath the other man’s arm.

“You rode here,” he accuses.

“It’s a nice night,” Megatron explains, truthfully enough, and holds up the box he collected from the bakery on his way here by way of peace offering.

Skywarp squeals in delight, any disappointment at not being able to get his favorite ex-gladiator slobbering drunk forgotten in the face of cake.

“T.C., he brought dessert!” he calls back into the apartment, and Thundercracker’s head pokes around the corner.

If the other Vossian has started drinking, it’s done nothing for the crease between his eyebrows, and his wings are still carefully folded under his dark work clothes. Megatron guesses he hasn’t been home for more than a half hour.

“Let him bring it in, then, Warp,” he suggests, pushing up his glasses with the back of his hand, which is clutching a large kitchen knife.

Skywarp takes the pastry box and finally moves aside to allow Megatron entry into the condo. He zips off toward the living room with the cake, wings flitting in excitement, while Megatron sits down in the entryway to unlace his boots and step into a pair of guest slippers (the extra, extra large ones that Thundercracker hunted down for him at some foreign market somewhere because he’d felt bad about how Megatron’s heels always hung out the backs of all the regular ones). When he looks up, it’s to find that Skywarp has returned and is now hovering behind him expectantly.

Not literally; there isn’t enough room in the hall for him to flutter those wings of his without hurting himself, but Megatron can tell he would if he could from the way he’s hopping casually from foot to foot.

It would take more effort than it’s worth to feign ignorance of what the young man’s after, so Megatron stoops, intending to bestow something chastely affectionate, only instead to have his mouth claimed in a kiss that he’s sure will make him drunk on alcohol fumes alone. He allows it until Skywarp’s hands try to wander down from his shoulders, and then he’s peeling him off, making excuses about how it’s too early in the evening for that and he still needs to greet Thundercracker properly.

The man in question is back at work chopping a roll of kimbap into individual pieces, and Megatron only manages to get him to turn his head enough for a quick peck on the corner of his mouth.

“I can finish that if you want to take a break,” he offers, rubbing pointedly at one of the tightly bound wings he can feel beneath Thundercracker’s shirt. Vossians’ wings are shockingly flexible, but Megatron is aware they do start to ache after a full day of binding.

“Your kimbap isn’t worth shit,” Thundercracker snorts, adding the most recent pieces to a growing mountain on the counter beside him and whipping out a new sheet of seaweed in one fluid motion. “I’m almost done, and then I’ll go change. You look nice, by the way. Purple’s a good color on you.”

“Come have a drink, Megs!” Skywarp calls from the living room, and Megaron glances over the counter to where the young man is loading marinated short ribs onto the round grill plate with one hand and pouring another dose of soju with the other.

“How much has he had?” Megatron murmurs to Thundercracker, who gives his husband a cursory glance before shrugging vaguely.

“He’s fine. Just having fun.”

“Are you planning on having any fun tonight?”

He gets a frown in return, and presses an apologetic kiss to the other man’s temple to show he didn’t mean it before moving off to answer Skywarp’s invitation.

“Have a lettuce wrap,” Skywarp orders him as soon as he sits down at the low table, and then pushes one toward him. Before the young man can try and shovel it into his mouth for him, Megatron carefully plucks it from his hand, eyes it for hidden traps like raw garlic (he’s fallen for that one too many times before), and tosses it back.

“I wouldn’t start the night with a trick wrap!” Skywarp protests, pouring them each a cup of soju. “You gotta work up to that kind of thing.”

“Sure,” Megatron snorts, but drinks the alcohol without suspicion. 

He spends the next 20 minutes or so peeling and grilling garlic cloves and doing his best to keep Skywarp out of his lap as politely as possible while they wait for the others to show up.

The three of them talk about Thundercracker’s work to pass the time. He teaches Vossian at a private high school. Kaon and Vos do enough business with one another that it’s a valuable language here, whatever people’s thoughts on Vossians themselves may be. There’s enough in what Thundercracker is careful not to include in his stories that Megatron is certain not all of the man’s colleagues and students are as understanding of Vossians and their Fae ancestry as the Tarnish tend to be.

Soundwave is the first of the other guests to arrive, Ravage squirming impatiently in his arms, and the bureaucrat barely looks up from his phone long enough to hand the infant over to Megatron before moving out to the balcony for a smoke and a phone call. With Ravage in his lap to keep Skywarp at bay, Megatron can finally relax into the evening.

He spends some time competing with Skywarp to see who can get Ravage to laugh first. A more serious baby Megatron has never met, and they still haven’t cracked him when Scrapper and his entourage arrive a few minutes later. Skywarp disappears into the construction workers’ midst, and Megatron moves himself and Ravage to the couch so the child isn’t accidentally trod or sat upon after making obligatory small talk with everyone around the table.

While his guard is down, Thundercracker slips in with a plate of kimbap. He’s changed into casual clothes finally, and there are unhappy-looking welts across his neon-tinted wings. They’ll fade within the hour, Megatron knows, but he still hates seeing them.

“Tuna and mayo,” he announces as he leans warm and soft into Megatron’s side. “Because you’re the only person I’d ever put it in sushi for.”

“It’s not sushi; it’s kimbap,” Megatron snorts, blocking Ravage’s attempts at snagging a piece in one of his chubby little fists. “Obviously, I wouldn’t besmirch sushi like this.”

“You’d better not.”

Megatron takes a piece and chews it appreciatively while Thundercracker picks one apart to feed to Ravage in smaller pieces.

“You should do Vossian food again sometime,” Megatron comments. “I liked it.”

“So you keep saying.”

“None of your friends would judge you for making your own food.”

Thundercracker just shrugs.

Soundwave returns from the balcony then, and Megatron thinks he’s about to be relieved from babysitting duty, but apparently Shockwave turned up while he was distracted. What exactly Shockwave and Soundwave’s relationship is, Megatron hasn’t the slightest clue anymore. He thought when he met them that they were romantically involved, but then Ravage happened, and… was not Shockwave’s. Which Shockwave doesn’t seem to find the least bit odd. It certainly doesn’t stop the scientist from snagging the other man by the waistband and leaning in to tell him something that curls Soundwave’s usually expressionless mouth.

“Warp wants a kid.”

The announcement rips Megaron out of speculations on his friends’ relationship status without ceremony. Thundercracker is offering Ravage a bite of rice like hasn’t said anything unusual.

“Is he… Already?” Megatron stammers, looking for the other Vossian in the growing crowd of party guests.

“It’s been over a year since the miscarriage. He says he feels ready, but…” Thundercracker sighs and seems to deflate slightly. “We’ve actually been trying for the last four months now. It just doesn’t work well for us without a third.”

Which is just one of many reasons that Vossians are so unwelcome in “polite” society. Unlike their fellow Faekin, the Praxians, Vossians never did get past their ancestral yearning for Trines. Not that they can’t live as just couples, but it’s much harder for two Vossians to conceive a child than three, and according to Thundercracker and Skywarp, you never really stop hoping that someday you’ll find that perfect third to complete the relationship.

“Would IVF help?” Megatron asks. “I’ve heard of Vossians using it before.”

“We don’t have the money.”

“Oh.”

This isn’t exactly a conversation Megatron would choose to have in a crowded living room, if at all, and he finds himself seeking desperately for a tactful way to change the topic. Or switch the conversation to Tarnish to reduce the chance of eavesdropping, but he’s not sure he knows the words for these things in his own language, let alone Thundercracker.

“Of course,” the Vossian continues, “ _ I _ could try carrying the baby. I’m a little older, so I could have better luck. But it doesn’t make sense for me to have to take maternity leave when Warp’s not working anyway. What do you think?”

“Sorry?”

“Should I go off my birth control and see what happens?”

Megatron blinks at him. In his lap, Ravage gives a shout of annoyance at being talked over and reaches for Thundercracker’s glasses, giving Megatron an excuse to delay his answer.

“I think you should be talking about this with Skywarp,” he says quietly when Thundercracker’s glasses are settled back on his face.

“We already talked about it. He said I shouldn’t because he knows I don’t want to go through carrying and giving birth, but I do want to raise a kid with him, so we need a third opinion.”

What they need is a third option, and Megatron can think of a very simple one that he suspects Thundercracker is hoping he’ll suggest. But there’s no way he ever could.

“Maybe take a break from trying for a month or two, and then see how you feel,” he says. “I think you’re both right, but you might feel differently about the situation if you’re more relaxed about it.”

Thundercracker nods, and some of the tension leaves his body.

“And maybe we should tell Warp not to drink so much if he’s trying to get pregnant,” Megatron adds, and the other sighs heavily again.

“He’s drinking because he failed another pregnancy test this morning.”

It’s then that Ravage realizes his mother is back in the room, and the bit of egg Thundercracker is trying to offer him gets knocked to the floor as the infant starts trying to throw himself over the edge of the couch to reach Soundwave, effectively saving Megatron having to answer for his faux pas at the moment.

The rest of the evening passes enjoyably enough with trivial conversation and just enough alcohol to be polite without getting himself buzzed. At some point, Megatron wanders out to the balcony, where Soundwave finds him and begins to ask about his current project for work and to make his usual attempts at talking the ex-gladiator into the political arena.

“It’s enough that my words are out there,” Megatron tells him, as usual. “I doubt they’d be half so effective if people knew who they were actually coming from.”

Soundwave pushes back a lock of dark hair that Ravage has pulled free from his perfect updo and fixes Megatron with a critical look. “You have more influence than you know, Megatron.”

“What about you?” Megatron asks in an effort to brush the topic aside. “Speaking of influential people, that is. Will the city still be standing tomorrow morning if you’re here with us all evening?”

A tiny smile quirks the corner of the other man’s painted lips. “Naturally, I have systems in place for my absence, and there are a slew of connections in this room that it pays for me to keep up with.”

“Don’t let Skywarp hear you say that,” Megatron huffs. “He thinks you come here because he’s just that irresistible.”

“Oh, Skywarp is part of why I come here. Ravage needs regular socialization with individuals in his same developmental stage.”

“Don’t be rude.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean that. I know he’s your… friend, and he’s lovely. His husband just seems a lot more your speed.”

“You’ve been friends with them longer than I have.”

“I’ve  _ known _ them longer than you have, Megatron. What you fail to understand is that I didn’t make ‘friends’ before I met you. I made acquaintances and occasionally took lovers, but I never would have thought to lower myself to something so mundane as a friendship.”

“You don’t say.”

“We are friends, are we not, Megatron?”

“I can’t help but feel I’ll wake up with Skywarp’s wings in my bed beside me if I say no.”

Soundwave pats his back with a perfectly manicured hand before turning back into the apartment.

The evening presses on, and one by one the others announce they’re turning in for the night and disappear. Each time, Megatron tells himself that he should also head out, only to find himself still sitting on the couch or standing in the kitchen when the next one goes. And then, quite abruptly, he realizes that it’s a quarter past midnight and it’s just himself and Thundercracker in the kitchen, Skywarp absently peeling the skins off garlic cloves that are only going to go to waste at this point.

“I suppose you’ll be heading out soon?” Thundercracker says, folding his glasses into their case for the evening. When he looks up again, there’s a note of hope in his blue eyes that Megatron couldn’t resist if he’d tried.

“Actually,” he says, closing the distance between their bodies with one easy step he’s been resisting all evening. “I thought I might stay a little longer.”

Skywarp must have been paying more attention than he thought because the third man is upon them barely a second after Megatron’s lips have closed over Thundercracker’s, climbing the taller man like a drunken monkey and demanding that he be carried to bed and spoiled the rest of the night.

Megatron is more than happy to oblige, lifting both his lovers without difficulty and transporting them safely across the debris in the living room to the sliding doors that hide the master suite. He wasn’t going to do this tonight—swore to himself that he’d be home before midnight—but his conversation with Thundercracker earlier in the evening kept playing through his mind. His friends are hurting right now, and fool that he is, there’s only one thing Megatron knows to do about that, however temporary a cure it may be.

Some time later, the two of them are spent and sleeping on either side of him while Megatron watches their wings rise and fall, the moonlight streaming through the blinds cutting iridescent stripes across them. Occasionally, they twitch, first Skywarp, then Thundercracker, as if answering one another in unconscious conversation. And maybe it is. He can feel their bond, invigorated by their physical intimacy, humming through him, tugging on his own spark as if inviting him to open up and join them.

Megatron rises carefully from between them and finds his clothes on the other side of the room where Skywarp flung them earlier. He moves back into the living room, fully dressed, and sighs at the mess still waiting out there. If Thundercracker wakes up in the morning and has to deal with it (and it will be Thundercracker who has to deal with it because Skywarp will be too hungover to be any use until well into the afternoon), he’ll only get stressed all over again.

As quietly as he can, Megatron starts gathering dirty plates, leftover food, and empty soju bottles to move to the kitchen. He fills a trash bag with napkins, paper towels, and half-eaten food and sets it by the door to take out with him later before filling the sink to get started on the dishes.

A sound behind him pulls Megatron from the trance he’d almost fallen into with the hypnotic nature of soapy water and repetitive dish washing, and he turns to find Thundercracker stumbling out of the bedroom, dressed in nothing but a low-backed tank top and what must be Skywarp’s underwear judging by the lace.

“You don’t have to do that,” the younger man mumbles, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he approaches.

“I wanted to,” Megatron tells him.

“It’s our home. It’s our mess to clean up.”

“Just go back to sleep.”

But Thundercracker’s already at his side, turning on the water to start rinsing the pile of sudsy dishes sitting in the other side of the sink.

“Thundercracker…”

“You should head out. Don’t want you to fall asleep driving.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Thundercracker doesn’t answer, just keeps rinsing dishes, and Megatron finds his gaze drawn back to the Vossian’s wings where they hang loose and tantalizing down his back. The smell of sweat and sex still waft off the other man, and to Megatron’s overworked brain it’s intoxicating even over the smell of the dish soap.

One of his fingers reaches out to trace the edge of Thundercracker’s wing, almost without conscious command, and the other man looks up. There’s a moment suspended between them, and then Thundercracker’s reaching for him in a rush, surging up to meet him with even more enthusiasm than earlier in the night. Just as before, Megatron knows he should say no, but instead he takes the smaller man in his arms, lifting him onto the counter, and has him for a second time, rough and fast this time. 

Thundercracker almost cracks his head on the kitchen cabinets behind him when he comes, spurting pearlescent ropes of satisfaction over both their chests in time to the ripples of his body around Megatron. The older man gives him a moment to catch his breath before chasing his own climax with a punishing pace. He pulls Thundercracker against himself in a crushing, one-armed embrace as he tips over the edge and spills into him.

“That’s it… That’s good… Just let go…” he hears Thundercracker murmuring as he buries his cries of release in the other’s shoulder.

Megatron wraps his other arm around his lover and stays that way for a moment, buried in Thundercracker’s body, his smell, his spark… He can still feel the hum of Thundercracker’s connection to their third, sleeping in the bedroom, can feel it pull at him, and wants so desperately in that moment to sink into it and lose himself in both of them.

And then Thundercracker pats him on the shoulder, a cue that he’s ready to be free, and Megatron pulls back. He tucks himself away and redoes his pants. Thundercracker fusses over the mess he’s made of his shirtfront, and Megatron assures him that it’s fine—he’ll wipe off most and cover the rest with his jacket.

“I should go,” he finally admits, and Thundercracker nods agreement.

Megatron wanders back to the bedroom to fetch the jacket he forgot there earlier and allows himself the indulgence of pressing a wet kiss to Skywarp’s lovely, sleeping face. The young man stirs slightly, murmuring some drunken nonsense, and the temptation to fall into the sheets beside him is a tangible pull that Megatron resists nonetheless to pass Thundercracker once more in the front hall. A quick kiss for the road, and he’s gone, nothing but the guilt left to accompany him home.

These nights are the most selfish thing he has in his life right now. He knows all too well how much they want him to be theirs, just as he knows that under no circumstances can he be.

When Soundwave first introduced him to the couple, suggesting he might have Thundercracker help him improve his Vossian (a task they’ve never seemed to get around to), Megatron never could have guessed what their relationship would become. At the time, he was still trying to figure out who he was outside of the gladiator ring, and it had been a long while since he’d let himself become intimate with anyone aside from the men he’d occasionally meet at bars and fuck in cheap motels to feel something other than self-loathing. 

And then along came these two young, soft things who were somehow just as desperate as Megatron for connection, despite already having one another. Megatron had never even considered the possibility of having more than one partner, but they fell into each other before he had time to reason himself out of it.

They’re young, they’re fun, they’re kind, and if they were among their fellow countrymen, they’d have their pick of any number of wonderful men or women, ones who had nothing more alarming than perhaps a bit of school truancy or illegal immigration at the most in their pasts. Ones who had real jobs and not pity ones cobbled together by people who hoped they’d be useful someday. Ones who could fall asleep beside them without worrying that they’d wake in the early hours of the morning to find they’d tried to strangle one of their bedmates in their sleep.

And, as if to cement how wrong for them he is, Megatron keeps letting them pull him back into their lives instead of just letting them go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case anyone's wondering, I watched a few episodes of Carnival Row during the development of this story, and I have mixed feelings about it as a whole, but I saw those wings and went, "OO! OO! I WANNA TRY THOSE ON MY VOSSIANS!!!" Obviously, these guys' wings are a little different since Thundercracker can fold his up under his clothes, but it's approximately the same thing. The story was so close to fantasy already with mpreg and spark bonds and things even though they're humanoid, I didn't think that final push would hurt much. ^^;


	3. Acquaintances

It's five in the morning by the time Megatron gets home, and he blends in with the evening shift heading home for the day. After locking up his bike, he stops in the street outside the building to look back down the hill at the city lights sleepily winking away to the mountains in the distance. 

A couple of his neighbors nod to him as they pass by on their way home, including Gearbelt's husband, Sparkrod. All of them have spouses waiting for them either in bed or with a hot meal already set out on the table. Megatron wonders what it's like to share your entire life with another the way they do—the way Thundercracker and Skywarp do. It's not something he thinks he'd be allowed.

He's still standing there, waxing philosophically self-deprecating, when the Iaconian approaches.

“Morning!” the man calls out in accented Kaonese, and Megatron starts from his thoughts at the sight of him.

It's the first time he's seen someone taller than himself since he left the gladiator pits three years ago. The man is beaming at him with a boundless sort of energy completely unlike the other bedraggled sorts that have milled past Megatron in the last little while, his pale blue eyes fair shining out of his pale face. He's dressed in a white lab coat over a white oxford and khaki slacks. The overall effect is that he seems to glow in the early morning light.

“Morning,” Megatron returns the greeting.

“You live here?” the stranger wants to know, pointing to Megatron's building, and comprehension hits the other man.

“You're one of the couple who just moved into 701.”

“News travels fast around here... Nice to know we're not the only foreigners in the building, though! The name's Skyfire of Iacon, Laboratory Research.” He's drawn level with Megatron now and holds out a hand like a coal shovel.

“Megatron of Tarn, Political Writer,” the other introduces himself.

Skyfire's eyebrows go up. “Not gladiator?”

“...Not anymore. Not for a few years.”

“Ah, well, our Star will be sad to hear. He's a big fan. Keeps hoping you'll get back in the ring someday.”

“Your husband?”

“Well, partner, technically,” Skyfire shrugs apologetically. “Much to his dismay.”

“Oh?”

“We were married under Iaconian law, but it's not valid here because of some technicality or other, and he's been whining about it for weeks. Bit spoiled, our Star. Pretty as the devil, and just as spoiled. Wants things when he wants them and no later. Partly my fault, I suppose.”

Megatron struggles for something to say to this. Based on what Gearbelt has said about the other occupant of 701, he believes it, but it seems an odd thing to tell someone you've just met about your romantic partner.

“What brings you to our building, might I ask?” Megatron ends up asking. “On a scientist's salary, surely you could afford somewhere nicer.”

To his surprise, Skyfire beams. “These old buildings have such old world charm, though, don't they? You can see the real Kaon from a place like this.”

“Some might argue the merits of having a bathroom in your apartment.”

Skyfire waves the thought aside. “Those kinds of modern innovations are convenient, for sure, but they totally destroyed our sense of community. You wouldn't believe how lonely Iacon is. I wanted to make sure Star would be able to make friends.”

“He might want to keep the TV down, then.”

“Sorry about that,” Skyfire sighs. “I talked to him when I got back from errands. I'll be working nights from now on, though, so he won't be running it like that during the day anymore for sure.”

“It doesn't bother me.”

“Well, if anything ever does, don't hesitate to let me know and I'll see to it.”

For a split second, Megatron considers informing the other man that he can hear just about everything that happens in the apartment above him, but decides to spare him the embarrassment.

“What kind of lab is it?” he asks instead.

“Sorry?”

“Where you do your research.”

“Astronomy.”

“So you spend your nights studying the stars in the sky only to return home to your own star every morning?” The words are out of Megatron's mouth before he can stop them, and he immediately wishes he could sink into the ground there and then as the other man blinks at him. “Sorry... I'm also a poet. It just... came out.”

“No,” Skyfire tells him hastily, his smile creeping back again. “No, I like that. My morning Star... I like that a lot! See you around, Megatron!”

* * *

When the sun starts peaking over the distant mountains, Megatron finally turns to head inside. He visits the toilets first, where there’s a line of residents waiting for a turn to relieve themselves. Crank, one of Megatron’s neighbors from across the hall, takes in his rumpled clothes of the previous day and laughs.

“Who was the lucky fellow?” he jibes, and Megatron laughs along without answering.

By the time he gets back to his own rooms, he’s too tired to bother undressing and falls fully-clothed onto the low bed. It’s cold and bare compared to what he left behind in Thundercracker and Skywarp’s condo, and he spends a moment fantasizing about the warmth of Skywarp’s body against his, the pleasant swell of Thundercracker’s hip beneath his hand, and the occasional rustle of wings against sheets.

And then his thoughts slip as he falls out of consciousness to another bed that smelled of home, and the comforting presence he’d shared it with. Strong arms to hold him safe, and a familiar spark spinning beneath his ear. A low voice speaking to him as he slept, a hand stroking his hair. A low voice speaking harshly. Another answering. Raising in shouts. Screams. A sickening crack.

Megatron’s eyes fly open with a gasp, and for a moment, he thinks the nightmare has followed him into the waking world before realizing it was only the sound of someone slamming the front door of the apartment above him. He lies perfectly still on the bed for a moment, breathing deep and even as he tries to bring his heart rate back to normal. He doesn’t think he’s been asleep for more than half an hour, but his mind is racing too fast to even consider rolling over and going back to sleep.

He shakes himself and reaches for his phone, debates texting Skywarp or Thundercracker to take his mind off things, but decides he ought to let them sleep. Instead, he gets back up off the bed, trying to rub exhaustion and the threat of further nightmares from his face as he searches around for a clean shirt to throw on so that he can head back out into the graying dawn and find a suitable distraction.

* * *

There’s a group of food carts at the bottom of the hill that always has something open, and Megatron heads there now. Not that he’s especially hungry, but eating for comfort is a luxury he’s recently begun letting himself indulge in.

Today, his heart is set upon beungoppang—hot and crispy and oozing with sweet bean jam—but there’s a bit of a commotion in front of the vendor’s cart when Megatron gets there. A small figure is standing in front of the cart shouting at the vendor, very slowly and deliberately. He’s dressed in a black hoodie so large it falls almost to his knees that has the words UNIVERSITY OF IACON XENOLOGY emblazoned across the back in gold letters. The brown legs sticking out the bottom are scrawny and bare, and there’s a fresh scrape oozing blood down one knee.

Megatron expects to find a child of 14 or 15 at most when he approaches to see if he can be of assistance, and so is more than a little surprised when he gets a better look at the boy’s face and recognizes him as the Vossian from the sauna yesterday. His long, dark hair is dripping down his back in a tangled mess, and Megatron wonders if he figured out how to use the sauna after all. The whole thing seems at jarring odds with his carefully put together image from the day before, though.

At the moment, he’s holding up two well-manicured fingers to the lady behind the beungoppang cart and repeating: “Two. Piece.” in slow, deliberate Kaonese. “How many… two. Piece?”

“Yes, two pieces cost 1,000 zeni,” the woman tells him, sounding like she’s on the verge of just chucking the pastries at him.

The young man looks equally frustrated as he stabs a finger at the little fish cakes and snaps, “Just two!”

This time, Megatron doesn’t hesitate about stepping in.

“I think he thinks you’re trying to sell him 1,000 beungoppang, ma’am,” he announces as he steps up to the cart. The other two look up, the vendor with relief and the Vossian with the same shock he showed at the sauna. There’s a distinctly red and swollen quality to his eyes and nose, like he’s only just barely stopped crying.

The vendor speaks first: “Do you understand him?”

Before Megatron can reply, the young man speaks up himself in almost flawless Tarnish: “I know what I’m doing!” then pulls a wallet from one of the sweater’s voluminous pockets and withdraws a couple of 500 zeni coins.

He slaps the money down on the narrow counter on the front of the cart, and then holds out a hand expectantly. The vendor purses her lips, eyes darting between Megatron and the Vossian as she pockets the money and hands over a paper bag with a pair of freshly fried beungoppang inside.

“And what can I get for you?” she asks, turning to Megatron as the younger man limps off with his purchase clutched to his chest.

“Maybe later,” Megatron tells her absently, already following the other because he’s just seen the name written along the sleeve of his sweater.

It isn’t difficult to catch up to him with their height difference and the Vossian’s limp. The question is what Megatron’s going to say when he does. It just seems like it would be more awkward to potentially run into him again later after having not offered any sort of assistance in this moment.

His quarry notices him before he has a chance to figure it out.

“Oh, my god! What do you want!?” the boy demands in Tarnish, still forging ahead. Megatron wonders where he’s going, because it’s not back up the hill toward the apartments and…

“I think we’re neighbors.” The observation sounds stupid even to him.

“Wow, what’s your point?”

Actually, it’s the entire point here, but it doesn’t surprise Megatron that this boy has lived his life in environments where it means nothing. His gaze drops to the blood tracking down the boy’s shin.

“Can I offer you a band-aid?”

He finally stops, turning watery, red eyes on the older man. Not just bloodshot red, Megatron realizes now, but that’s the actual color of his irises. It’s not uncommon in this area of the world—Megatron has a hint of red in his own dark eyes—but this young man’s are unusually striking.

“ _ What? _ ” The Vossian blinks at him like he doesn’t understand the question.

“A bandage. I think I’ve got one in my pocket. For your knee.” Megatron is digging in his pants pocket now. He usually does have at least one on hand; force of habit from the days when he was almost constantly wrapping them around his knuckles.

“Aren’t you… You’re Megatronus, aren’t you?” the young man wants to know. “The gladiator?”

“I go by Megatron these days.” His hand closes on a couple strips of paper-wrapped bandages, and he separates one out to offer over.

The Vossian stares at it for a moment, and then lets out a snort of amusement that quickly erupts into gales of full-on laughter, doubled over his paper bag of pastries. Megatron continues to hold out the band-aid, unsure how else to react.

“Sorry!” gasps the young man. “Sorry, just…  _ Megatronus _ —the Slag-Maker of Kaon— _ that _ Megatronus, is offering me… is offering me a band-aid! God, what the fuck is this morning!?”

And Megatron finally recognizes hysteria for what it is. Sure enough, a second later, the young man’s laughter has shifted into sobs.

“Would you… like to sit down?” Megatron reaches out tentatively. “There’s a small park a block that way. Maybe get some breakfast in you? The beungoppang will get soggy if you leave them in the bag.”

He doesn’t even know what he’s saying anymore, but the sobbing stranger nods and allows himself to be steered off the main road, limping and hiccupping pitifully the whole way.

“Why… What makes you think we’re neighbors?” he asks shakily once Megatron’s gotten him settled on a bench.

The older man indicates his sweater sleeve where the name SKYFIRE is clearly visible. “I met your husband earlier. He mentioned you. Star, right?”

“Star _ scream _ ,” the boy corrects starting to comb his long fingers through his hair to straighten it out. “He’s the only one allowed to call me ‘Star.’ And he’s not my husband.”

“He mentioned. Something about a legal technicality.” Megatron bends down to take a look at the other man’s knee. “Did you trip?”

“The sidewalks are terrible, just like the rest of this fucking country. He didn’t tell you what technicality, did he?”

“No. How long were you married?”

Starscream hesitates, twisting some water out of the ends of his hair. “Five years.”

In which case, he must look much younger than he is.

“Did you live in Tarn at some point? Your Tarnish is very good.”

“I like Tarnish television. I… I watched it a lot back in high school.”

“You learned from television? Wow, you must be some kind of genius.”

“There’s no need for sarcasm.”

Megatron frowns. “It wasn’t. I’m sorry if it came across that way. I just know a few Vossians, and I know Tarnish is a common language in school there, but none of them speak it as well as you do. I’m genuinely impressed.”

Starscream’s miserable expression doesn’t shift.

“Eat your beungoppang,” Megatron suggests, straightening up. “I’m gonna go ask the tteokbokki stand over there for some napkins and water to clean up your knee.”

Since Megatron knows the guy running the tteokbokki stand, it doesn’t take long to get what he needs, and he’s relieved to see when he returns that Starscream is nibbling at the tail of one of his pastries. There are few ailments Megatron knows that aren’t helped at least marginally by a good cry and the consumption of comfort foods.

“You came back,” is the first thing that Starscream says when Megatron shows up again.

“You got some trust issues or something, kid?” Megatron snorts.

“Would you like the list chronologically or alphabetically?”

Megatron decides not to deign that bit of melodrama with any more answer than a kind smile as he wets one of the napkins. “Are you okay with me touching you, or would you rather do this yourself?”

Surprise flashes across Starscream’s face at the question, and he sets his half-eaten beungoppang aside. “I can do it.” Megatron hands him the napkins and watches as the boy starts to wipe the half-congealed blood off his leg.

“Why aren’t you a gladiator anymore?” Starscream asks him after a moment.

Megatron shrugs. “I didn’t like it. Never really did. It was just the only thing I could do when I first moved here.”

“So, what do you do now?”

“I’m a writer. I write political speeches and things, mostly.”

“You’re joking, right?” Starscream reaches for another napkin, and Megatron hands it over.

“And poetry. I published an anthology last year.”

“You did not!” Starscream almost laughs. “What’s it called?”

“Unburied.”

“Because you used to live in the mines?”

It’s Megatron’s turn to laugh. “Not as subtle as I’d like to think, is it?”

“You should lend me a copy. I don’t think anyone’s posted it on your fan forums yet.”

“Oh, god, no! There’s a reason I published it under a pseudonym.”

“But now I know it exists.” The boy flashes him a mischievous little smile.

“Good luck getting anyone to believe you it’s really mine.”

And the smile’s gone in an instant.

“I’ll lend you a copy, though. If you really want to read it,” Megatron promises.

“Which unit do you live in?”

Megatron tells him, and Starscream freezes.

“You’re right beneath us,” he realizes, and Megatron sees something like fear flit through his eyes. “Can you… Do you hear us much? Through the floor?”

“I heard the TV yesterday,” Megatron tells him in the most honest non-answer he can come up with, and Starscream relaxes.

“It’s… I just don’t like the quiet,” he says.

“Well, I work from home. You’re always welcome to come downstairs if you need company.”

Starscream wrinkles his nose and sets aside his handful of used napkins. “That would be weird, wouldn’t it? Hanging out with you? I mean, just this is weird.”

“Why? I’m your neighbor.”

“I know. That’s what’s weird.”

“Fair enough.” Megatron extends the band-aid toward him once more.

“Actually, I think I’ll just leave it,” Starscream tells him, examining the wound. “It’s stopped bleeding, and it’ll scab better if I leave it uncovered.”

“True.”

Megatron’s slipping it back into his pocket when a frantic cry rings out over the otherwise empty park: “STAR!”

Both men look up to see Skyfire vaulting over a seesaw on his way toward them. When he reaches the bench, he’s doubled over trying to catch his breath and covered in sweat. He gasps something at Starscream in Iaconian that Megatron can’t follow before dropping to his knees in front of the younger man and throwing his arms around him.

Megatron may not understand the words they’re saying, but Starscream’s body language and tone of voice is annoyed and exasperated as his husband holds him and rambles in obvious relief. Then Skyfire turns to Megatron.

“Thank Primus you found him!” he says in Kaonese. “I thought he just went out to use the bathroom, but then he didn’t come back and… I was afraid he would get lost or someone might hurt him!”

“This is a safe neighborhood, especially at this time of day,” Megatron assures him. “It’s unlikely he would have come to any more harm than he managed to inflict on himself.”

Starscream is looking between them with a slightly pinched, nervous expression, and startles when his husband turns back to him suddenly. Skyfire seems to only just then spot the scab forming on the other’s knee and lets out a cry of alarm before dropping back down and beginning to look Starscream over from head to foot while speaking in rapid Iaconian. All Megatron catches is Starscream’s assurances that he’s perfectly fine. A knot of awkwardness starts to twist in Megatron’s stomach, and he doesn’t know where to look, but also doesn’t feel it would be appropriate to just walk away yet.

After being swatted away from trying to lift the sweater and presumably examine the boy’s wings, Skyfire seems finally satisfied that Starscream really is okay and pulls back to kiss and caress his husband’s tear-stained face. 

“I’m so sorry, sweetie,” he says, and Megatron knows at least that much Iaconian.

Starscream sniffles and says something else before reaching for his beungoppang and offering the uneaten one to his husband. Skyfire takes it, gives him another kiss, and turns to Megatron again as he helps the smaller man to his feet.

“Thank you for taking care of him,” he says. “I can’t even imagine if anything had happened to him…”

“Just being a good neighbor,” Megatron shrugs.

Skyfire squeezes Starscream’s hand and nudges him lightly with a comment in Iaconian that makes the boy snort.

“I’ll see you around?” Starscream asks.

“I’m right downstairs if you ever need anything,” Megatron answers, and gets half of what he thinks is a genuine smile back before Skyfire wraps his arm around the boy’s shoulders and starts leading him away into the brightening dawn.


	4. Laundry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a couple notes about cultures and particularly languages in this fic: 
> 
> I like languages. I am a polyglot myself. I do not, however, have the time to invent multiple alien languages for a fanfic that no one is paying me for (if you want to donate enough money to my ko-fi page to entice me to invent a few languages, though, I will not complain). So, yes, I have literally just stolen a couple of Earth languages and relabeled them. 
> 
> Nothing is really fully one-to-one culture-wise, but Kaon is basically a heavily industrialized South Korea, as I mentioned on the first chapter. So, any 'Kaonese' is actually just Korean. The beungoppang they were eating in the last chapter are these: https://mykoreankitchen.com/bungeoppang/ and when Megatron talks about the 'sauna', he's actually talking about the jjimjilbang, which is this: https://matadornetwork.com/read/everything-need-know-jjimjilbang-spas/. There are lots of different levels of jjimjilbang, from the ultra fancy spa to the somewhat amped up public bath. Vossian is Japanese, but definitely do not assume my depictions of Vos in this story in any way reflect my experiences of Japan. Tarnish is Russian, and Iaconian is just English because America seemed a good choice for the country that decided they're in charge because their ruler is a conduit of God.
> 
> That's all for now. Enjoy.

Later in the day, but earlier than he’d like, Megatron’s phone rouses him from a solid sleep. The day has heated up considerably since the last time he was awake, and he’ll have to unstick his sweat-soaked body from the mattress to get to his phone. He manages to ignore it the first two times it rings, but on the third round of incessant buzzing, he rolls over with a groan and picks it up.

“I expect you aren’t allowing late night revelry to interfere with your work progress,” Soundwave replies to his grunted greeting.

“It’s Saturday,” Megatron points out, wiping sweat from his neck with a grimace.

“And I’m sure at least half your neighbors are at work.”

“They wouldn’t be if your party had anything to say about it.”

“Which we won’t unless you write it for us.”

Megatron sighs and runs a hand over his face. He needs to wash it, and probably shave.

“When does Cutback want her speech?” he asks.

“Rally’s on Tuesday.”

“Then don’t call me again until Monday. Not for work, at least.”

He hangs up before Soundwave can add anything. What the man is worried about is anyone’s guess. Megatron has never missed a deadline before.

It’s barely noon, and Megatron didn’t get back to his bed until well after seven, and not long after that, his upstairs neighbors had apparently made up because the creaks and clangs of their bed coupled with the sound of Starscream’s desperate voice kept Megatron awake for another half hour or so. Now, he’s groggy, overheated, and weirdly achy. It feels like he would expect if he’d let Skywarp and Thundercracker inside him last night, which he rarely does for exactly that reason.

He rolls over with a groan, thinking a trip to the bathroom might help with the cramping, and realizes the source when he spots the dark stain on his sheets.

Great.

He allows himself a moment to wallow in self-pity before going to clean himself up a bit at the sink. It’s his own fault, really. He knew there was a chance he’d be starting soon, and last night’s activity was bound to speed it up. A responsible adult would have put on a pad before going to bed, but it just always seems such a waste when his menstrual cycles have never been regular. At least he only ruined sheets and underwear and not a pair of pants this time.

When he goes digging under his bed for his tampons, he discovers he’s down to nothing but regulars. He’ll have to run to the store before the cramps get too bad. 

For now, he slides one in and makes himself decent enough to meander down the hall to the bathroom. Then, he heads back to his room where he bundles the ruined underwear together with the stained sheet and tosses both on top of his laundry basket before hoisting it onto his hip and making for his door once more. He nearly drops his load when the door swings open to reveal Mechanic Gearbelt standing just outside with her fist poised to knock.

“Omo!” the woman exclaims over Megatron’s own shout of surprise. “What do you think you’re doing bursting out of doorways like that! You’ll give someone a heart attack!”

“What are you doing right outside my door?” Megatron returns—a legitimate question, but he gets a disapproving look anyway.

“Here.” Gearbelt thrusts a paper at him. “The weekly bulletin.”

“Topcast couldn’t do it this week?” Megatron asks as he takes the paper and begins to scan it. 

He’s never lived anywhere that had a neighborhood association before this building, but apparently they’re commonplace in both Kaon and Vos. Even Skywarp and Thundercracker’s much more modern and isolated complex passes around a weekly bulletin with announcements about community events and local politics. Megatron has thought about running to join his building’s association, but has a feeling he’ll have to wait until one of the men or women who’ve been doing it for the last 30 years dies before he’ll have a chance.

Gearbelt is the president, naturally.

“She’s in the hospital,” she tells him. “Caught a summer cold that turned into bronchitis.”

“We ought to get a proper ventilation system installed in this building,” Megatron muses, setting down his laundry basket. “Do you have a pen?”

She’s already holding one out to him.

“And then I need you to bring that upstairs to our new neighbors,” she says when he’s finished scrawling his signature across the bottom.

“What? Why?”

“Because you can talk to them. Wallop saw you helping the little one this morning down by the food carts. And here you told me you didn’t speak Iaconian.”

“I don’t,” Megatron assures her. “ _ He _ speaks  _ Tarnish _ , and his husband speaks perfectly good Kaonese if you need to talk to one of them.”

“No, I don’t trust the big one.” Gearbelt’s eyes narrow.

“Skyfire? Why not? He seemed pleasant enough.”

“Aigoo! Didn’t you hear them earlier?”

“Uh…”

“Not the sex—you know I don’t judge young people for having sex—the other part.”

“No.”

She gasped dramatically, eyes widening with the excitement of scandal. “Aigoo-e! It was awful! I don’t know what was going on, but I’ve never heard anyone screech like that. It sounded like someone was torturing a cat!”

Megatron frowns and slowly caps the pen before handing it back to her. “When?”

“Hm. Right around the time we were sitting down to eat, so maybe six?”

Six… Right around the time he woke up from that awful dream.

“And before you ask, of course we went over there,” Gearbelt continues. “Screaming stopped as soon as we knocked on the door, and the big one came out—god, he is massive!—to tell us everything was fine and he’s sorry for the noise. Said his husband was just upset, and hoped we have a good day.”

“Did you  _ see _ his husband?”

“No, just heard him crying. I think he was hiding in the kitchen. But you saw him right after that, didn’t you? How’d he look?”

Megatron considers that, trying to remember all the details.

“I thought he’d just come from the sauna because his hair was wet. He did look like he’d been crying… but otherwise he seemed fine.” Except the scrape on his knee, but there was enough dirt and grit ground into both his knees that Megatron sees no reason to think he was lying about having tripped. “He really might have just been throwing a temper tantrum. He is very young, and I get the impression he’s pretty stressed about the move.”

Gearbelt hums, her eyes narrowing once more, and then reaches out to jab the pen into the middle of Megatron’s chest.

“Find out,” she says. “Blaring televisions is one thing, but I don’t tolerate domestic violence in my building.”

* * *

There’s a laundry room in the basement, but the machines are the manual kind where the agitator and spinner are two separate compartments and the clothes have to be switched back and forth between the wash and rinse cycles. Ever since they built the new laundromat down the street with the fancy high efficiency machines that spin your clothes so well they’ll drip dry in just a couple hours, almost no one uses the basement machines anymore, despite the fact that they’re free. Megatron’s surprised to hear one of them going when he gets to the bottom of the stairs.

He’s even more surprised when the small figure sitting atop one of the idle machines looks up from his book and it’s Starscream.

The Vossian is dressed in a tanktop and shorts now, and Megatron’s eyes instantly snap to the wings trailing lazily on either side of him on the machine. Wings look best in natural light, but even under the bare bulbs that illuminate the laundry room, Megatron can see that Starscream’s are lovely: milky white glass veined with crimson to match his eyes.

For most of his life, the former gladiator didn’t care one way or another about Vossians or Praxians and their shimmering wings. Certainly not the way some people do. Now, he has two Vossian lovers, and he can’t see wings without recalling how Thundercracker’s felt fluttering desperately against his chest last night when he and Skywarp had him pinned between them. Or how much he enjoys watching Skywarp’s flick about as he talks. Or the surprisingly downy softness of their edges…

Starscream’s twitch suddenly, bringing Megatron’s attention back up to his face.

“Hi. Did you need this?” the young man asks, indicating the machine he’s sitting on.

“I can use the other one,” Megatron tells him, but doesn’t move.

It’s just occurred to him that if he dumps his laundry into the machine beside Starscream, there’s a chance that his neighbor will get a glimpse of the bloodstains on his sheet while it’s tumbling in with the rest of his things. There are no assumptions Starscream could possibly draw from the situation that Megatron’s comfortable with.

Well, according to the timer, Starscream’s things should be done spinning soon, and then he might have a chance to get his in while the other man is distracted unloading.

“How’s your knee?” he asks to fill time, and because he notes that the scrape is now covered with a bandaid after all.

“Fine.” Starscream shrugs and looks back down at his book.

“The, um… The leader of the neighborhood association asked me to bring you the weekly bulletin later. Do you know about those?”

“We had them in Vos.”

“Right. Well, it’s all in Kaonese,” Megatron explains, stepping across the floor to drop his basket on the machine beside Starscream. “But I can translate if you don’t want to wait until Skyfire wakes up.”

Starscream stiffens suddenly. “No. You should bring it while he’s awake; I’m sure he’ll want to read it himself.”

Gearbelt’s other request plays through Megatron’s mind, but how does she expect him to find out about something like that? He doesn’t mind the idea of attempting to befriend the boy simply because Starscream seems like he needs a friend here, but it’ll likely take months before he gains enough trust to get the truth out of him. In the meantime, there are certain ways he can test the water.

“You can’t just tell him what it says?”

“No, I might forget something. He leaves for work around six, if you want to bring it up a little before then.”

“I wouldn’t want to interrupt him when he’s getting ready to leave. Why don’t I leave it with you and you can—”

“No!” Starscream looks up from his book sharply, and if Megatron didn’t know Skywarp and Thundercracker so well, he might have missed the fearful ripple that went through the boy’s wings as he let out an awkward sort of laugh. “No, I’m… I’m super spacey. I’ll lose it for sure if you leave it with me.”

“Okay,” Megatron concedes, and then another thought occurs to him. “I don’t want this to come across like a criticism, but… if you don’t have enough Kaonese to buy something from a street vendor, how have you been grocery shopping?”

There goes that little ripple again.

“They post the prices at the grocery store. They don’t on the food carts,” he says with a note of disapproval. “I’ve been shopping by myself in foreign countries since I got married. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re not from Iacon, then?”

Starscream snorts. “God no. Iacon? Do I look like I’d be from somewhere as mainstream as  _ Iacon?  _ I moved there for a study abroad and… ended up meeting my husband.”

Despite the levity of the first part, there’s a certain heaviness to how he says that last bit. From what Megatron understands of Vossian culture, bonding with a foreigner is something of a big deal because it significantly lowers one’s chances of ever forming a full trine. Some parts of the country still consider it taboo. It’s possible that meeting his husband meant losing his family for Starscream.

Megatron toys with a suggestion, wondering if it would be pushing too far too soon, and then decides to go for it.

“I was gonna run to the store after I finish my laundry. Would you like to go together?”

Starscream’s face goes blank, like he has no idea what to do with that.

“I don’t doubt you can manage on your own; I just thought I’d offer. We could easily make it there and back before your husband wakes up,” Megatron adds carefully.

The buzzer for the washing machine goes off then, and Starscream turns to it like a lifeline. When he leans forward to slide down, Megatron happens to catch a glimpse through the armhole on his tanktop of a swath of thick cloth wrapped around his chest.

Binding?

He doesn’t think Starscream could be trans, though. He’s slender and effeminate, but that’s common in Vossian men. The shapes of Starscream’s throat, hands, and hips are all no less masculine than Skywarp’s. 

Either way, he probably shouldn’t be wrapping cloth around his chest. Megatron’s heard of people cracking ribs that way. He wants to say something, but isn’t sure how to without sounding like he was purposely trying to peek down the other man’s shirt.

“Sure,” Starscream says, now halfway through unloading his wet clothes from the agitator, and it takes Megatron a moment to remember what they were talking about.

“Cool. I’ll… come up and get you when I’m done with my laundry.”

Starscream tucks his book under his arm and hoists up his laundry basket with a grunt, clearly unable to lift the sopping load more than a few inches off the floor. He nods once before waddling toward the stairs.

“Do you want help with—”

“Nope,” Starscream interrupts his offer. “I draw the line at letting a famous gladiator handle my laundry for me, clean or dirty.”

Megatron shrugs, able to understand the sentiment all too well as he finally unloads his own dirty laundry in the privacy of the now-empty basement.


End file.
